10Kw of Solar Power in the Santa Cruz Mountains!

Welcome to the Castle Power System!

The Castle Power System (CPS) is a photovoltaic grid tie electrical generation plant producing clean, renewable power. CPS produces no pollution in operation; no CO₂ or other greenhouse gases, no oxides of nitrogen (photochemical smog), no acid rain from sulfur dioxide from coal smoke. It also doesn't endanger fish (hydro) or leave behind high level radioactive waste (nuclear). It takes in sunshine and produces AC electricity.

CPS is located in the hills above Santa Cruz, California. Santa Cruz is about 80 miles (125 kms) south of San Francisco, on the northern edge of the Monterey Bay.

CLEAN ENERGY SOLUTIONS Solar Technologies PO Box 3268 Santa Cruz, CA 95063 +1-831-477-0994 Solar Technologies [sales@solartechnologies.com]

CPS is located in a naturally clear hillside area, with an open view to the south, which makes it an ideal location for photovoltaic generation. The panels have a clear view of the sun all year from at least 9:30am to 4:30pm. In the summer, this generating time is extended from before 8am until after 6pm.

I contracted with Roger Denault of Solar Technologies for the system. All work was performed on time, they cleaned the site after the work, and they were very conscious of our concerns about erosion and native plants on the hillside.

See the System in Operation!

The Castle Power System is composed of 96 separate solar panels. They are mounted together in racks, and the racks are mounted on heavy posts. There are 12 panels (2 across by 6 high) in each of the 8 racks. 8 posts hold them an average of 5 feet off the ground. Each rack is manually configurable for angle towards the sun.

The panels generate DC electricity, which must be converted to AC for normal household use. A device called an inverter does this job. CPS has 4 inverters, one for each pair of poles — an upper pole and a lower one. (In the photograph above, the pairs are offset from each other, but the 1st in the lower row is paired with the first in the upper row, and so on.)

Direct sunshine at solar noon contains just about 1 Kw per square meter (a little bigger than a square yard). Polycrystaline silicon solar cells can yield about 12% of that power as DC electricity, and further losses acrue in conversion to household AC. CPS has approximately 91m² of collecting area, and in real life can peak right at 10Kw of AC power.